CHEF TALK - PIZZA TIME

CHEF TALK, PIZZA TIME 2014

The holidays are over. I hope that you can look back on your holidays with a smile but now it is back to business. It is time to look at things a bit more seriously.

I trust that your New Year resolution list is pasted on your refrigerator, with an additional copy on your computer screen.

 Times are still difficult worldwide and many of us will have to tighten the belt a bit more and there is already very little room left. If you are one of those who really feel the pinch, every bit of help on how to spend your money more effectively and still being able to put a healthy and tasty meal on the table is more than welcome.

One wise move is to invest in quality. It definitely saves money on the long run. Quality food and also quality kitchen aids. A quality knife last a lifetime, a set of cheap knives is a wasteful purchase. Same goes for food and storage of food items. A cheaply bought vacuum sealer that gives you a leaking seal after a few weeks has no purpose of even buying it in the first place.

Second is to buy good quality food products from a vendor you can trust, who can give you some decent information about the product and also how to handle it. Good quality food last longer and when you vacuum seal it, it will last even longer as it stays in much better condition. No freezer burn or dried out meats in your freezer for which you paid good hard earned dollars. Throwing food away is easy. Getting the most out of your dollars is not so easy.

Prepared ready meals loaded with preservatives and all sorts of other not so healthy stuff are relatively expensive and of seriously less quality than meals you make yourself. You cannot see or control the contents of these ready meals. You only know what you eat when you cook yourself.

Lovely sounding taglines are of no value to a consumer, I mean, it does not mean anything when it reads on a packet ‘New formula, made with the freshest real beef’. A line like that means zero. Correct me if I am wrong. First of all you do not expect a product with beef contents to be made with half rotten beef and secondly it raises the question: does that mean that the older formula did not have real beef? 

The real valuable information on the packaging, cut of meat, fat contents, added flavoring and preservatives depend completely on what health authorities require by law or food act. Any information that has not been stipulated will not appear, believe me. This means that even when you know the countries food act by heart, you still do not know what you eat.   

This is reason enough for me to stay away from those kinds of products.

Make a well balanced diet a priority. Use fresh produce and cook your own food. You know what your family likes so choosing those items should not be too difficult.

When you do not have too much time left in a week due to a heavy work load and other family obligations, consider dedicating an hour per week and do some bulk cooking. If dedicating your time to a specific task at a specific hour does not work very well consider this idea. 

On Sunday I cook from 11 am till noon. You might have something else planned, so that may not work for you. Try this method at a different time. It works much better for me. When you have the prepackaged products in the refrigerator, you do not want to waste them, you paid for them, you vacuum packed them so you are more likely to use them. 

When the kiddos complain, make pizza and ask them to help, they will love it. Freeze the pizzas, vacuum seal and keep frozen. Homemade pizza ready to go, it does not get much better than that.  

Buy bone in chicken pieces, for example, firstly they are cheaper and secondly they have more flavors and stay juicier after cooking.

Place all chicken parts on a baking tray, season with salt, pepper and any other seasoning you have (paprika powder, garlic, chilly flakes) or any other seasoning of your liking.

Preheat your oven to 325 F and roast for 40 to 45 minutes. Leave to cool, portion the cooked pieces and vacuum seal. When you eat chicken a few times per week, keep it chilled. If not, freeze it. Anyway you choose, you have ready protein to use.

Do the same with your vegetables, only choose a different vegetable for different days. You can precook vegetables (blanch), fry vegetables or braise, this way you have a good variety at any given time. Your meals are almost ready in a very short period of time.

Carbohydrates can also be prepared, cooked rice, boiled or roasted and even mashed potatoes vacuum seal very well. Cooked pastas vacuum seal perfectly also.   

Once you are on the right track and the response from the family is positive, you will enjoy cooking more and more.

Did I tempt you with homemade pizza? Here is a recipe for the dough and sauce, the topping is your choice, great way to use some leftovers as well.  

  

HOMEMADE PIZZA

Ingredients:

2 Tsp Dry yeast

1 Cup Warm water

2 Tbsp Olive oil

3 Cups High protein flour (bread flour)

1 ½ Tsp Salt

Pinch Sugar

METHOD:

Dissolve the yeast in a few tablespoons of water with the sugar. Mix until it looks frothy. Leave for ten to fifteen minutes..

Place the flour in a big bowl and slowly add the yeast water and the rest of the water. The water may be too much or too little for the amount of flour. This depends on type of the flour and your individual environment. Do not worry. If it is not enough add a bit more, if your dough is too soft, add a bit more flour.

Add the salt and the oil.

Knead all into soft dough. Good guide is that the dough should not stick to your hands anymore.

Cover the dough and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour or so, depending on the temperature in your kitchen. You should have about 1/3 more dough after the rise.

Divide the dough in portions, the quantity of dough is enough for 2 pieces, ½ “thick, 14” round pizzas.

If you want smaller sized pizzas, just divide to your liking.

Form the right size and thickness, and leave the formed pizzas to rest for another ½ hour.

If you freeze the pizzas, you can do this with or without topping.

Pre-heat your oven to 450 F

Bake the pizza for 10 to 12 minutes if you want to freeze it later. Bake a few minutes longer if you plan to eat straight from the oven.

Freeze the pizza after it has cooled down, vacuum and keep frozen. They stay perfect for up to 3 months.

THE SAUCE:

A good Italian pizza sauce is made with tomatoes, onions and garlic. No tomato paste or puree.

Ingredients:

½ Nos Big onion (finely chopped)

3 Cloves Chopped garlic  

5 Nos Ripe tomatoes (chopped)

Oil for frying

Method:

Fry the onions till translucent in 3 tablespoons of oil, add the garlic and fry for another minute.

Add the chopped tomatoes and simmer for ten minutes.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper and leave to cool.

You can use any type of topping you like, use some of the leftover vacuumed meat you have.

Enjoy 

  

Written for pMG by:

(Professional Chef) Marinus Hoogendoorn

Culinary expert in recipe development  

www.vacupack.com

1-800-227-3769

  

TO ALL CHRISTMAS DINNER COOKING HOME CHEFS, Part 1

                                    CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON

                           TO ALL CHRISTMAS DINNER COOKING HOME CHEFS 

Part 1 

By the time this article reaches you, thanksgiving is history for 2013, sure hope you had a great celebration.

So what’s next, Christmas is around the corner, one of the scariest events for many home cooks to look forward to.

Planning a menu, get your supplies, trying not to break the bank, preparing a guest list, all lovely subjects to get your brain cracking.

It is my personal opinion that when you have guests on a once a year occasion like Christmas, do not cook something you have no experience with. Cooking a dinner you are familiar with, will almost certainly result in a dinner table full with happy people.

The reason why I think that way is that we all tend to overdo our Christmas celebrations, we plan to make too many dishes, side dishes, snacks and desserts.

By doing so we end up in the kitchen most of the day and forget that Christmas is actually also for us, the chefs.

Christmas is a family gathering for everybody to enjoy. 

First remember that you are at home and you cook Christmas dinner for family and friends.

So your menu planning should be based on beating the clock, not breaking the clock, getting all worked up and placing oneself out of enjoyment of the family gathering Christmas should be.

Let me help you a little bit and give some tips how to make your Christmas dinner a lot easier.

Traditionally Christmas dinners must have a roast, the choice of which type of roast is all yours, a leg of lamb, goose, turkey, game or whichever roast you are comfortable with.

The highlight of your dinner should be a big platter with a roast for everyone around the table to share.

Now here is your first time saver, instead of making individual plates with vegetables and potatoes, and have the plates scattered all over the kitchen because you are not a restaurant and also likely not equipped to accommodate individual plating for a large group of people, place all your vegetables and potatoes around your roast, it looks great, grand and impressive as a centre piece.  

Let’s say you have chosen to cook,           

Whole Roast Turkey with a Sauce of mixed Berries and Port Wine

Garden Herbs infused Roast Potatoes

Assorted Garden Vegetables

Roasted Chestnuts

Christmas stuffing 

Many of the components in this menu can be made in advance, let’s have a look.

Potatoes, choose Russet or Maris Piper potatoes, leave them whole, wash and boil in water with salt for ten minutes, rinse under cold water, peel the skin off, cut into the size you like, a bit chunky is nice for a dish like this. Drain and cool.

Place the potatoes in a vacuum bag, add some olive oil, a few sprigs of rosemary and parsley. 

Vacuum and store in your refrigerator.

You can do this two or three days in advance, the oil and herbs will give a lovely flavor to the potatoes during the storage time.

Now the vegetables.

Say you choose carrot, parsnip, Brussels sprouts and red cabbage.

After cleaning and cutting to shape, keep the vegetables chunky as well, cook,

Carrots and parsnip Blanch 12 minutes  - cool in ice water

Brussels sprouts Blanch 8 minutes  - cool in ice water

Red cabbage Cook 1 hour with your spices, e.g. vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, bay leaf, red wine, salt and sliced apples. Cool (no ice water)

After the vegetables are cooled, drain and vacuum pack, store in your refrigerator

You can do this also 2 to 3 days in advance. NO FREEZING.

If you are not too comfortable vacuuming the red cabbage, store this item in a container, it will be fine or even better, because the flavors have time to develop, for 3 to 4 days. You can however vacuum the red cabbage, stay in front of your vacuum sealer and when the liquid comes  half way up the seal strip, press seal. It works but be careful. 

Buy pre-cooked chestnuts, like the canned type.  

The sauce. 

You can perfectly use frozen mixed berries for this, add 100 grams sugar and half a cup of port wine to 500 grams of berries, bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Mix with a whisk. If it is too thick, add a bit of water.

Store this also in a jar, you can vacuum many components, but there are some that a not so suitable for vacuuming. Do ensure that your jars are very clean, best is to boil them a few minutes before use.

The sauce will stay fine for a few weeks, similar to marmalade or jam.

Major advantage, besides a relaxed Christmas day for yourself, is that you can make a mistake, if major you have plenty of time to redo the item.   

Well you are almost done and it is not even Christmas eve.

Last but definitely not least, the turkey.

If you buy a frozen turkey, make sure that the turkey is well thawed, depending on the size this may take up to 2 days.

Season the turkey by placing cut oranges, rosemary, salt and pepper in the cavity.

Do this 1 day in advance, cover the turkey with cling wrap or a wet towel and store  in your refrigerator. Remove from your refrigerator on the morning of serving, this allows an even temperature in the bird and with that a better finished result.

I believe that is works better to have the stuffing separately cooked from the bird, unless you have a de-boned turkey.

Everybody has his/her own preference for a stuffing, so choose one you like.

Prepare the stuffing preferably one or two days in advance, so the flavors can develop as well.

If your stuffing is fairly firm in consistency. Vacuum, this works perfect with bread and also meat based stuffings.     

Christmas day:

You wake up without the feeling that you have a tough day ahead, feels good right.

You can still spend a bit of time on some snacks, the not to be missed sausages with bacon and maybe a starter and a dessert.

Based on your cooking time and the roast you have chosen, when you have chosen a turkey like in the sample menu, plan such that the turkey is 45 minutes ready prior to serving time .

Remove the turkey from the oven and cover with aluminum foil.

Remove the potatoes from the vacuum bag, place your potatoes in a baking tray, drizzle with some olive oil and roast in your oven for about 30 minutes at 325 F.

Heat some oil in a frying pan add the carrots and parsnip, season and fry for 5 to 10 minutes.

Fry the Brussels sprouts with the chestnuts similarly in another frying pan.

If you did vacuum the red cabbage, the easiest way is to heat the whole bag in a pot with hot water for 15 minutes or so. No scare that it will burn.

You can heat the berries sauce in the microwave, you need this item warm, not boiling hot.    

Now you are ready to serve.

Place the turkey in the centre of a large serving plate, half of the parsnip, carrot, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and the roast potatoes on one side and the other half on the other side of the turkey.

The stuffing on the cavity side and the drained (do not forget to drain off excess liquid) red cabbage on neck side.

Place your sauce in a separate bowl.

WOW. Success guaranteed.

Written for PMG 

By Professional Chef Marinus Hoogendoorn 

  USA  www.vacupack.com

 Canada www.vacupack.ca

CHEF TALK, FAST FOOD AT HOME

CHEF TALK  

FAST FOOD AT HOME

Many among us love fast food, just pass by at the drive – through and pick up your favorite burger, pizza slice or hot dog, a regular practice for many of us.

 There are bad fast foods, very bad fast foods but also not so bad fast foods available in the market, but I think that you can make something better than that.

I do not have any intention to tell you here not to eat fast food or lecture you about health issues related to eating fast food, many chefs, a hundred times more famous than me, are touching that subject in and out, so I leave that to them.

Fast food companies do not cook, even though they make it look they cook like a celebrity chef, they purchase products from a food processing company and basically just re-heat the products they serve. 

I have worked for such a food processing company as product development chef for several years and dare to say that I pretty well know how the fast food industry works behind the counter and in their ‘kitchen’.

To give you a peak, we made, among others, burgers for a famous burger giant, good burgers, well produced, HACCP proof, super fast frozen, tip top product. They, these burger guys, have in every outlet around the world a special, only available to them, designed oven where staff places the burger on the base of the oven and your perfect burger drops, at the other side of the machine, on your bun after four minutes and twenty five seconds.  

 Sounds like magic? It is not, you can do the same at home, quality patties and even better quality fries and buns      

With increasingly worrying stories about the health aspect of fast food, heart diseases, obesity and what not, making fast food at home becomes more and more popular.   

The best thing about making fast food at home is that YOU choose the products to use.

Meat from a trusted butcher, buns from your favorite bakery shop and maybe you like to make your own sauce and fries.

Now here is the problem. I know. I hear them too often.

“I have to start making everything from scratch every time and I hate that”.

Here is your solution, make batches at a time, vacuum pack what you make and freeze it. If you have a family of four, pack four burgers per bag, no waste. 

Buy fast food ingredients on offer, you may save money as well, minced meat, chicken wings, sausages, vacuum pack and freeze.

When you freeze potatoes they will turn sweet after a while but you can freeze homemade French fries.  Cut potatoes in French fries shape, fry at 170 degrees Celsius or 338 F. for three to four minutes until cooked, drain, cool, vacuum and freeze. When you use them, just fry golden and crispy at 180 degrees Celsius or 356 F and you have the perfect fries.   

Vacuum packing and freezing prolongs the shelf life significantly and your products retain its freshness. 

The burger patties I spoke about earlier have NO seasoning whatsoever, if that works for them it works for you, just form the patties, vacuum and freeze.

Below a very easy, but tasty, recipe for fried chicken wings that you can use for the vacuum/ freeze method. Season the wings, vacuum and freeze is all you need to do to have a great fast food snack in your freezer. Give it a try. 

FRIED CHICKEN WINGS

1 Kg Chicken wings (cut in half, drummet and wing)

1 Nos Large onion (cut into rings)

1 Tbsp Turmeric powder

Salt and crushed black pepper

Oil for frying

Method:

Season the chicken wings with the turmeric powder, salt and pepper.

Heat the oil to 180 degrees Celsius or 356 F and fry 4 to 5 minutes.

Check for doneness

Drain the fried wings on kitchen paper.

Fry the onion rings in the same oil for two minutes 

Top the chicken wings with the onion rings and serve hot with a sauce of your liking, ketchup, mayonnaise, tomato sauce or hot sauce.

Note: You can use other small cut chicken parts as well, like I did in the picture.

Oh, if you still decide to go to the drive- through, don’t forget to ask them to include these wings in their menu.    

Written for PMG 

By Chef Marinus Hoogendoorn

Culinary expert in recipe development and proof reading.

Find top quality vacuum sealers in the USA www.vacupack.com

International distribution in Canada  www.vacupack.ca

Bulk Up Your Stash

Bulk Up Your Stash Why vacuum packing is perfect for emergency survival food More people than ever are looking for long-term food storage solutions for a variety of reasons, from economic to preparatory. Whether you're looking to save money, you're a hiker or outdoor enthusiast, or you just want to be ready in case the world ends, there are plenty of benefits to incorporating vacuum sealing into your emergency survival kit.
Reasons for using vacuum packing If you're preparing large quantities of survival food, there's no better method than vacuum sealing. This technique has several advantages over dry storage, canning, and even deep freezing, including:
 Shelf life. Vacuum-packed foods last longer than other storage methods. For food that requires refrigeration, you can prepare, vacuum-seal, and freeze them, and they'll keep for one to two years. If you dehydrate the food first, the shelf life is extended to two years or more. For dry goods and non-perishables, vacuum packing also provides two or more years of shelf life.
 Storage space. Vacuum packages have a slim, flat profile, making them easy to store in piles, or even stacks of boxes. They take up far less space than typical canning storage, so you can store more food in a smaler space.
 Nutrition and flavor. Vacuum-sealed food retains more nutrients and flavor than other traditional storage methods.
 Food safety. Because vacuum packing keeps oxygen away from the food, mold and bacteria can't develop. In addition, the lack of oxygen prevents insect infestations, and the prevention of escaping odors keeps wildlife from invading your stash.
How to make your own MREs MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat, are a great staple for any outdoor trip or emergency survival kit—but they can get expensive. Making your own MREs with vacuum sealing is an affordable—and lightweight—way to build up your emergency food supply. With homemade MREs, you can seal a full day's rations into one package. Here's a quick menu idea for one day:
Breakfast: Two oatmeal packages, two tea bags, 4 oz. ground coffee Lunch: Dried beef jerky, whole-wheat crackers, dehydrated fruit mix Dinner: Beef stew mix (dehydrated vegetables, rice or quick-cook pasta, meat jerky broken into pieces, salt, seasonings)
To vacuum-seal an MRE, package the components for each meal in a separate, regular zip-lock bag, place the bags inside a vacuum pack bag, and then close with your vacuum sealing machine according to the instructions. Be prepared for anything Vacuum sealing can help you put up plenty of emergency survival food for any occasion, ensuring that you're well-stocked at all times. It's the ideal low-cost, space-saving, long-term solution for survival and food storage.

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